Gov. John Hickenlooper on Wednesday appointed veteran prosecutor Michael Dougherty, a former Democratic candidate for attorney general, to replace Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett, who is stepping down at the end of the month to take a job with a law firm.

House Speaker Crisanta Duran named longtime advisor Kelly Watkins to be chief of staff, House Democrats announced Tuesday.
“No one in Colorado state government works harder and smarter than Kelly,” Duran said in a statement. “We make a good team, and I am thrilled to have her take on this lead role as we head into the 2018 session.”

State Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Democratic candidate for Congress, and Ian Silverii, executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, both of Lakewood, were married on Saturday, July 1, in a ceremony in the carriage house and garden at the Governor's Residence at Boettcher Mansion in Denver in front of hundreds of friends and family members. The bride is the daughter of Brent and Stacy Pettersen of Englewood. The groom is the son of Ed and Terry Silverii of East Brunswick, New Jersey.

Vowing to fight President Donald Trump’s “disastrous agenda,” Democrat Joe Neguse, the son of Eritrean immigrants and a former CU regent, declared Tuesday he’s running for the 2nd Congressional District seat held by U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor.

“My name is Andy Kerr, and I am running for Congress,” the Democratic state senator told a crowd of family, friends, colleagues and supporters filling the gymnasium as he began his speech at Dunstan Middle School in Lakewood on Wednesday afternoon.
It’s the same way U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter — at that time a former state senator from a nearby district — introduced himself, approaching “every hand in the room that would shake his” a little over a decade ago when he was running in the Democratic primary for an open seat representing the 7th Congressional District, Kerr recalled.

With a promise to fight for education, jobs and the Colorado way of life, state Sen. Andy Kerr, a Lakewood Democrat, plans to announce on Wednesday afternoon he’s running for the 7th Congressional District seat represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, who declared Sunday he’s running for governor in next year’s election.

Eric Nelson, the Aurora Public Schools board member with a knack for self-invention, is at it again.
Nelson, who lost a Democratic primary for an Aurora House seat last summer when it came to light that he’d fabricated nearly everything on his resume, including numerous advanced academic degrees and a career as a decorated Air Force officer, went quiet for months after the school board erased his once-lengthy biography from its website, took away the district’s credit card and publicly censured him for lying about his background.

A lengthy profile of former House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst appeared last week on the Left Hand Valley Courier’s website, and it’s worth a read. The former lawmaker from Boulder County didn’t break any news, but she got the media send-off from public office she deserved, the opportunity to share her philosophy from decades of […]